Skybound

Skybound, from Norwegian firm Tumbleweed Interactive, follows in the (vertical) footsteps of games like Up There and PapiJump Plus as a game that’s all about gaining altitude, although it has a look and feel all its own. We consider it a worthy addition to the genre.

Skybound presents you with a rubber bouncy ball, and asks you to draw platforms of clouds under it with your finger, deflecting it ever higher into the atmosphere with every bounce. You can affect the angle and height of the bounce by drawing crooked lines, which is good, because there are a lot of items to pursue (and avoid) on your way into space. Balloons and special clouds grant you an extra-high bounce, while bricks turn your ball red and deaden its agility for a short time.

The finger-drawing mechanic works well, and it takes some skill to set your platforms up with the quickness and accuracy necessary to keep climbing. We’re very fond of the game’s quirky hand-drawn graphics–particularly the swirly clouds and gorgeous oil paint backgrounds. There’s no music, but you can play your own iPod tunes.

We also like the game’s multiple play modes and extras: there’s an easy mode that gives you more leeway to screw up, a “boss mode” where you bop a succession of giant floating eyes with your ball, challenges, and even a concept art gallery. We do think there’s room for a few more features, though. For instance, it would be neat to snag powerups for drawing longer clouds, or multiple lines at once. It would also be cool to be able to compensate for poor bounces by tilting your phone, ala PapiJump.

But we like Skybound just fine as it is, too. It looks and plays like a game made with care, and $1.99 is a palatable price.

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The fine folks at Milkbag games have released Sidewords. A fun little diversion of a word game that is the devil child of crosswords and scrabble. For each level in the game the grid must be completed to win the level — this means that each letter at the top and side must be used. And not just the top or side, but each word must be made up of letters from the top and side to create a grid. It’s a pain, but in the right kind of way. Even the simplest of the levels can be a head scratcher until you get used to the game. Well worth the $3 as a diversion while we wait for Milkbag to finally release Snow Siege.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math.

It’s not always easy to tear your kids away from their tablets and make them do something edifying. Thankfully, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math relieves you of this task by turning mathematics into a fun touchscreen video game. Win win!

Aimed at children 3-6 years old, the app makes math fun by ‘gamifying’ it, turning simple mathematics problems into little challenges so that your pre-schooler can learn and play at the same time.

There are more than two dozen mini-games, split across three categories: Numbers, Shapes and Measurements, and Add and Subtract. According to the developer the difficulty of these puzzles is adaptive too, so kids of any ability can be both encouraged and challenged.

Mini Dayz has launched and it’s a pixelated 2.5D open world that’s as brutal as the desktop version. In this game, the player is dumped on shore with nothing. They must scavenge around for food, water, and weapons while avoiding attack. It’s the kind of game where the goal is to stay alive as long as possible. But that will never be very long. It’s oddly free and seems to only have an ad on the main screen — for now.

Pewter Games has brought their charming point and click adventure The Little Acre to iOS. It’s an amazingly beautiful animated adventure set in a sort of hybrid magical / alien world. A great all ages adventure and very fun.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, The House of Da Vinci by Blue Brain Games. There’s a reason Leonardo Da Vinci is the only renaissance figure who routinely shows up in video games you know. With his remarkable inventiveness and genius for creative problem-solving, Da Vinci was a gamer through and through. He was just born 500 hundred years too soon. Thankfully, there are studios like Blue Brain Games to bring him to life in videogame form. The House of Da Vinci, which comes to us courtesy of a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, is a puzzler that seeks to channel the artistry and innovation of its title character.

You play as one of Da Vinci’s more promising apprentices, and you have the challenging task of trying to work out where the hell he’s gone. Was he assassinated by the church? Who knows. Has he quietly gone into a retirement? Perhaps. Did he accidentally invent a shrink ray and shrink himself down to the size of an dustmite? Probably not. Da Vinci’s workshop looks beautiful, thanks to some impressive 3D graphics, and the in-game environment is crammed with all the elaborate machines and crazy inventions you’d expect to find in the workplace of a renaissance genius.(more…)

Poly Bridge is out now on iOS, and it’s good to have it! It’s a great game and many seem to agree that it’s the best bridge builder game available. But the iOS versions, so far, is missing the sandbox mode. I would hope that it’s coming soon in an update. If you are all interested in physics puzzlers, grab this one. (Note: the video is for the PC version, I have yet to see a trailer for the mobile version, the developer Dry Cactus isn’t that great at marketing…)

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